N.B.: Man-made disasters/emergencies such as theft, home invasions, and the like should also be part of our emergency preparedness planning.  Though there’s no absolute ways to defend ourselves against hostile forces (unless you’re filthy rich and can afford to hire goons or private guards), equipping ourselves with the basic knowledge on how to defend our homes from criminals and other bad elements is a must.  Below is a guest post on the basic precautions on how you can defend yourself and your family against intruders. – EOD

Crimes involving intruders can happen anywhere and these don’t even have to occur exclusively in high-crime areas. Keep your home and family safe with the following basic emergency preparedness precautions against intruders.

Choose a Safe Room

A safe room is any room or area in the house where you and your family can escape to in case an intruder enters your home. This room should be secure, accessible, easy to find and have enough space to accommodate members of the family (including pets). Store emergency provisions inside the room, and include foldable mats for sleeping, flashlights, fresh batteries, food heaters or warmers, water and food. Consider long term food storage to keep the stocks edible during an emergency.

You might also want to consider stocking items that can be used as weapons inside the safe room. Sticks, knives, even guns should be available should you need to use them. If not, learn how to improvise. For example, peppers mixed with water can be used as a defensive spray, a frozen water bottle may be hard enough to hit someone with or a bottle of spray perfume/alcohol with a lighter may be used as a flammable spray. Research the uses of common items and how they would react when combined with other items.

Also, keep a phone in this room so you can contact the police. Although your home phone will work for this purpose, it’s best to use a mobile phone in this situation in case the phone line is cut or rendered unusable. Post emergency numbers on the wall of the safe room where they can be seen easily.

Be Ready to Defend Yourself

Although a gun will help you defend yourself, not every member of your family may have access to it. Instead, keep other weapons such as sticks, batons, knives, stun guns, pepper sprays, kubotans, shurikens and the like in areas where you can find them quickly. Make sure that while these weapons are hidden from plain sight that you can find them and grab them when and if you need to. Use camouflage if necessary. Keep in mind that although you can use these weapons to defend yourself, an intruder can also take them and use them against you. As a precaution, you and your family should be the only people who know where these weapons are and how to use them.

Learn how to Use Everyday Weapons

Virtually any item in the house can be used as a weapon but it is only effective if you know how to use them. Things such as a fireplace poker, lamps, books, vases, statues, curtains, flour, salt, pepper, cooking oil, boxes—anything that can be thrown at, hit, beat or used against an intruder to incapacitate him or her. If an intruder catches you by surprise, you know that there are things in your house you can use to defend yourself and protect your family.

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